India the kings of cricket, and not just on the field

The BCCI is an indifferent King. Previous generations of England and Australian boards were bad kings as they institutionalised the racism and prejudice towards non-whites. For most of the 20th century they failed in growing the game and left the ICC penniless. Thank God India runs cricket now. Atleast now cricket has its place in the modern sporting world.

I played competition cricket for 20 years. During that time I was a voracious cricket follower. I recall being very frustrated by the poor coverage of Test tours in the 70s, 80s and 90s when Australia toured away. I was particularly fascinated with Test cricket. The one day stuff was something you watched while drinking with your mates. The saturation of the restricted formats has left me cold. The screaming, the hysterical commentary, the rubbish techniques that better resemble baseball. I am also very disillusioned with the ICCs failure to ensure a level playing field with the test nations and the corruption, stemming predominantly from the sub-continent has sickened me to the core. I am less interested today and less interested every day with the game I once loved. I can not stand the way India and to a lesser extent Pakistan have diluted the integrity of the game.

You didn't get a thing of what i said. Your comment is completely irrelevant to mine. I am talking about the quality of pitches in cricket. Pitches in Australia, England, WI, S.Africa lack quality. They are no more what they used to be 70 or 80 years ago.

Yes, with todays pitches, it turns on 5th day, but watching cricket of first 4 days is extremely dull & boring. By green top, i don't mean what we call green tops today. I mean really thick grass like olden days. These days, in a test match, for first few overs(like 10 or so), there is pace with swing & seam. But after that, its just a childs play ground. Those days, there were better batsmen, due to the life in the pitch(thick green tops), the bowl used to seam, swing & bounce at a real high pace. Hence team totals never crossed 150. Test match will not last more than 3 to 4 days. That kind of contest keeps the cricket alive, more people would want to see, more people will turn up at the grounds, tv viewers will increase. Slowly, Power will shift into the hands of the boards who play quality cricket.

WACA and GABBA still have their character very much intact, Adelaide Oval is pretty close too now they've worked out how to get the drop ins displaying some personality, MCG has been a bit variable but it kind of always was, the SCG is the only real change but I'm honestly not sure if that's not down to Sydney becoming a bit more tropical in recent years.

I accepted a long time ago that the BCC holds all the cards... I don't like it though. At the time of bidding for the 2011 World Cup Australia and NZ were the only bidders. Yet it was hosted on the sub continent. India didn't like the format for the 2007 World Cup because they lost their first two games and were effectively eliminated. Format changed for next World Cup. India don't like the minnows improving. A late reprieve for this World Cup but their excluded from the next - effectively hindering development of associate members. DRS, lights, the monkey incident, poor sportsmanship not just from the team but THE ENTIRE BCC when things don't go their way. Their like a kid that caught mummy having an affair - all they have to do is have a sook and the ICC bend over backwards to keep them happy and shut them up. Sad thing is even a lot of Indians I've spoken too arn't happy with the full control the board has or the way they carry on.

India are still at least producing some turning Test wickets, Australia has lost all the old character that each wicket used too have.

Don't we love to bash Indian cricket on this forum.

Dream dream dream as we are witnessing in this world cup, india and nz are the teams ... For odi's Since last 2 years india has more away wins then any other teams including great aus and rsa this year indian domestic cricket has provided some green toooooops, score's like 50/5 100/10 0r near to 150 are quite common even the qtr and semi final if the trend continues ............. so bare in mind THE BCCI knows that might happen

Wouldn't the pitch hold together quite well if it's a green top? My favourite time of a test is day 5 and the pitch looks like an earthquake has gone through it.

Since leaving out India is not practical, atleast the other nations must play on full green top pitches(thick grass) exactly like in 1930s 40s. This will give a killer contest between the batting team & bowling team. They will get out for very low scores initially since the quality of batsmen today is not good. A rare six would be more fun then than watching the raining 6s of today. There will be much more drama and thrill in watching wickets falling. Slowly with time(series by series) teams will become tough and better, batsman too will become better in quality. After a while, a team score of 200 would be possible. Indians will virtually get all out for 50 while playing overseas on green tops. BCCI will be embarassed and will become a joke. Teams like Australia, SA, England, WI will occupy top 4 positions. The power will shift from BCCI to these boards.TV broadcasters worldwide will focus on matches of Australia, SA, England, WI than India. If people see some old videos, they will understand the difference and they will crave for that type of contest in cricket. This is the only solution.

Don't know the years exactly. I have seen some very old black/white images, and some documentaries. They are very old. I assumed that they are from back then. Seen a documentary of bradman too. He's from that era.

Green tops in the 1930s and 40s. That you can watch on video. Give us a break China.

You said "The ICC must take control." What is ICC? Its BCCIs puppet. Who's the chairman of ICC? The person who controls Indian cricket. The solution is something else altogether. The other nations must unite & leave india on its own. They can play IPL or any other thing they want. This way, alteast, the quality of cricket will increase. Cricket will be popular than ever. Yes, the money will be less than what they get at present. But Hey, they won't die of hunger. They will be good. Cricket & players survived with less money & without Indian money for over a century. A green top cricket pitch is the heart of cricket. All the other teams can convince TV broadcasters by saying the brand of cricket will be twice as popular if there is quality just like old times.

Cricket reminds me alot of where Rugby union and Tennis were. Both used to be amatuer sports, and guarded by monopoly ways, with the powers that be. Rugby was totally dominated by the hime unions at the IRB, still is in alot of ways but less so now. It is expanding and opening up more and more, with the expansion of the world cup in the pro era etc. Tennis also went pro by 1970, opening up the sport to globalisation. The ICC or BCCI it seems, are not, there trying to consolidate there power amongst the Big 3. The way to put them out of business and force them to reform, is boycott matches don't bother tune in. But until the regular brainwashed Indian cricket fan takes action, and stops watching meaningless best of 7 ODI series matches, then Houston we got a problem. As it seems the regular bandwagon Indian cricket fan loves to have India dominating and haveing a monopoly on the game, and is happy to play the same teams over and over again. The Indian average cricket fan doesn't have a global expansion vision for cricket unlike soccer, and same with many of the common rugby fans in the NH still seem to love the 6Nations as there heart and soul, and stuff expansion. it's a numbers game and the BCCI and ICC have the advantage as Indian cricket fans the regular bandwagon fans are satisfied. Until they dissent, India will control cricket's direction unfortunatley.

BCCI (india) is a bad king. Like a Hiltler. A bad king is one who destroys what he is supposed to protect. BCCI is one of the major reasons for the detriment of cricket. Just like germans or any other blame their ruler for their demise, BCCI will be blamed for the demise of cricket. When i watch old videos of 1930's 40's, i notice that they played on full green top, just like the outfield grass you see today in india. There was a contest between bat and ball back then. There was quality. Slowly, people will be fed up with these raining sixes. I don't know how its all going to end. Media is doing its best by exaggarating ("low quality matches" as "great matches") and "low quality batting" as "great batting". How long this will go on. Scoring 200s by indiciduals will become a routine. Soon, people will not feel anything even if they witness 6 sixes in an over. Yes, BCCI is a king (the bad one).